Remote control of medical equipment is known in the art. For reasons of safety, verification procedures are required to ensure that a remote control device is correctly communicating with a medical apparatus. In the case of multiple remote controls being used in the same environment, for example to control multiple items of medical equipment, identification protocols avoid a remote control being inadvertently connected to the wrong medical apparatus.
In the area of radiation/particle therapy treatment, remote control of medical equipment has also been described, for example in U.S. Pat. No. 8,657,743, where the remote control of certain processes is enabled by placing the remote control device in a pre-defined location. This is, however, a cumbersome procedure and includes a variety of drawbacks. For example, it makes it difficult to react quickly in an emergency, and can reduce the degree of efficiency of the control process by making the process possible only from a given location. There is a need for improvements to existing systems in terms of safety and efficiency of use.